The thigh-or-higher stocking boot is one of those borrowed-from-the-boys accessories that took on a sexual charge when adapted for women. A sort of hybrid between the medieval courtier’s second-skin tights, the fisherman’s sturdy gaiters, and the soft armor of the dashing musketeer, it was most dramatically reintroduced to the fashion conversation recently by Raf Simons at Christian Dior.

Step back in time 50 years ago or so, and you might recall Yves Saint Laurent’s cuissardes, the thigh-high boots that Roger Vivier created, in crocodile, for the Fall 1963 collection. Tall and swashbuckling, these channeled courtiers of old. And, as the decade progressed, Vivier and others would bring the boot closer to the leg so that they looked like stockings and created a long streamlined look.

The 1960s were a boom time for hosiery; you could argue that the dawn of tights, and the development of stockings that didn’t require garters, helped to make those abbreviated hemlines that much more wearable and popular. While punks and pinups delighted in showing their suspenders, it was not comme il faut. Even the godmother of the miniskirt, British fashion icon Mary Quant, encouraged pairing tights with her thigh-grazing looks “so you can sit gracefully.” This is the same woman who, in 2003, told Vogue: “The ’60s for me were all about legs. It took a certain amount of courage to show them, but it was so liberating."

The development of “glove-like plastic” and stretch leather gave the stocking boot, well, legs. Following in Vivier’s footsteps were makers like David Evins, Kickerino, and the award-winning Beth Levine, who, with her husband, Herbert, is credited with popularizing boots, and who worked magic with stretch vinyl. It wasn’t just Pretty Woman that revived the stretch boot in the 1990s; spandex also had something to do with it. More than a decade later, Simons has taken up the cause, showing shiny, geometric-heeled cuissardes in his Couture collection this past January and again at his ’60s-inflected, and sexy, Fall show. The soundtrack? “Hot on the Heels of Love.”